Daniel Ikenson
Director, Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies
Jul 05, 2019
While Huawei may present a genuine security risk to the United States and the world, there are big problems with the current case against the telecommunications giant, and banning all forms of commerce is not the way forward.
Mar 01, 2019
Without agreement as to what constitutes legitimate cybersecurity policy, Washington and Beijing risk thwarting trade, opportunities for collaboration, and technological progress.
Oct 18, 2018
Trump’s hardline approach to China is less an abrupt policy pivot than it is the culmination of years of bipartisan hand-wringing in Washington over the question of how to respond to China's rise.
May 02, 2018
A stable and growing commercial relationship between the United States and China is essential to the well-being of the global economy. A smarter, more durable approach to the problems we confront would be for Washington and Beijing to make lists of all of their gripes, put them on the table, and see whether, and to what extent, they can be resolved.
Mar 02, 2018
Any U.S. decision to restrict imports based on the argument that an abundance of low-priced raw materials from a diversity of sources somehow threatens national security would lower the bar so significantly as to invite every other member of the World Trade Organization to invoke national security to protect favored industries.
Dec 12, 2017
Late last month, the Trump administration “self-initiated” antidumping and countervailing duty investigations of imports of aluminum sheet from China. Reactions from media, social media, and the Chinese government seem to suggest these measures are especially provocative, pushing Washington and Beijing even closer to the brink of a trade war. But there is a less dire interpretation to consider.
Sep 18, 2017
For more than a decade, China and the United States have been engaged in a game of tit-for-tat technology protectionism, which now threatens to escalate into a wider high-tech trade war. But protectionism need not be met with protectionism. There is another route to deescalate this conflict: via the World Trade Organization.
Sep 18, 2017
For more than a decade, China and the United States have been engaged in a game of tit-for-tat technology protectionism, which now threatens to escalate into a wider high-tech trade war. But protectionism need not be met with protectionism. There is another route to deescalate this conflict: via the World Trade Organization.
May 15, 2017
Affirmative findings would give the president statutory authority to raise import barriers to protect domestic sources. But invoking national security to justify protectionism is an extreme measure—the “nuclear option” of international trade law—that would generate some undesirable consequences for U.S.-China relations, as well as for the rules-based trading system itself.
Feb 03, 2017
Like a slow motion train wreck, we can see what’s coming, but are powerless to stop it. No longer do facts matter. No longer is there appetite for cautious deliberation. No longer can we assume cooler heads will prevail. The guardrails and emergency brakes that prevented the relationship from running off the tracks in the past have fallen into disrepair. Where else to go, but into the abyss?